US – Over half of households may be unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement

The release of the Federal Reserve’s 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances is a great opportunity to eeassess Americans’ retirement preparedness as measured by the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) write Alicia H. Munnell, Anthony Webb, and Francesca Golub-Sass in The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update. (Choosen excerpts by JMM to follow)

NRRI shows the share of working households who are “at risk” of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in retirement. The Index compares projected replacement rates – retirement
income as a percentage of pre-retirement income – for today’s working households with target rates that
would allow them to maintain their living standard and calculates the percentage at risk of falling short.

The brief’s key findings are:

The National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), based on newly released Survey of Consumer Finances data, shows that over half of households may be unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

Between 2007 and 2010, the NRRI jumped by 9 percentage points due to:

• the bursting of the housing bubble (4.5 percentage points);falling interest rates (2.2 percentage points);
• the ongoing rise in Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (1.6 percentage points);
• and continued low stock prices (0.8 percentage points).

The hardest hit households were those nearing retirement and those with high incomes.

.

2007 was a terrific year, and 2010 was a terrible year as it came in the wake of the economic crisis.

Those in the bottom third experienced the smallest increase, mainly because they rarely hold equities and
rely primarily on Social Security benefits, which were unaffected by the financial collapse.

via The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update